The Ranthambore Festival takes conservation – of local ecology and music traditions – very seriously

Call of the wild

When I stepped foot in Nahargarh Palace on a crisp January morning earlier this year, little did I know that by the end of the weekend I would’ve learned how to play a Rajasthani folk instrument, met pioneers of Indian wildlife conservation efforts and enjoyed Meera bhajans under the midnight stars, sung beautifully by Rami Devi, one of Rajasthan’s few female folk singers.

Ranthambore Festival, now two years old, is the brainchild of Abhimanyu Alsisar (whose ancestral home hosts Magnetic Fields) and Mumbai-based music entrepreneur Ashutosh Pande. Pande finds the idea of “building up a festival, only to tear it down three days later”, problematic. So for Ranthambore, they’ve opted for permanence. In 2017, “we built the open-air amphitheatre and, this year, the Bageechi garden stage. We’ve also installed a rainwater harvesting system so that we don’t deplete the water table of the region.” I was at the second edition of the festival to play a collaborative set with Delhi-based flautist Kartikeya Vashist; but how could I be in Ranthambore and not go on a morning wildlife safari? So I hopped in one of the Canters organised by the festival, and was lucky enough to glimpse two majestic tigers sunning themselves beside a watering hole.

“My great-grandfather was the very first wildlife warden of Ranthambore,” Alsisar tells me. “My father, Gaj Singh, sits on the state wildlife board. I was raised around forests. We’re firmly committed to preserving this fragile human-nature-animal ecosystem.” The subject of wildlife conservation occupied our afternoons: Legends like Dr MK Ranjitsinh, architect of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, shared their stories, while film-maker Oliver Sinclair, at a screening of his documentary Leopard Rocks, spoke of the peaceful coexistence between leopards and human tribes in North-west India. Apart from emptying my wallet over artisan-crafted local and conscious products (by labels like Okhai, Dastkar Ranthambhore, All Things Chocolates and Pahadi Local), I also sat with Imamuddin Khan at the experience zone to learn how to play the khartaal. One of the oldest percussion instruments in existence, the khartaal is made of two sets of thin, elongated wooden discs, each of which is balanced on the player’s thumb and ring finger. It’s deceptively hard to play, as I learned after 30 minutes of trying to pluck a standard pattern. Amid mainstream rock by Farhan Akhtar’s band and fusion projects like Trio Benares (where Hindustani classical meets jazz), the spotlight remained on local folk traditions, culminating in a screening of the second edition of Puqaar Diaries: a multi-year documentary project that deep-dives into the lives of India’s folk musicians. This year’s film explored Pushkar, Bhuj and Kutch; each act featured was part of the festival’s line-up – from Gujarat-based ektara player Kanha Ram to a 21-member Nagara supergroup led by Nathulal Ji Solanki. My favourite memories however are of the midnight performances at the amphitheatre. Bhuj-based Maharana Mohan Govind would pause between songs to explain the anatomy of the ghada gambhira, a fascinating instrument of pure leatherskin tied over an earthen pot, played in tandem with a steel drum. “I work as a construction worker during the day and am often exhausted by the time I reach home,” Govind told his audience. “But when I pick up the ghada gambhira, a hypnotic calm falls upon me, and I find myself playing it for hours on end. “I worry about its future,” he continued. “But platforms like this festival will hopefully help build a connect with an urban audience, and motivate a new generation to pick it up.”